DURING the early 1970s when Zimbabwe liberation movements, ZANU and ZAPU, were operating from their bases in Zambia, Rhodies always worried themselves sick about the direction the liberation war in Mozambique was taking.
Mozambique was still under Portuguese rule before 1975 and there was a bitter war between the Portuguese and the black people’s liberation army, FRELIMO.
FRELIMO was having the upper hand and this worried the Rhodies.
The racist Rhodesians reasoned that if Mozambique fell, they (Rhodies) were going to be in deep trouble because FRELIMO, who were great friends with ZANLA were going to grant ZANLA vast territory to operate from.
And with that, the situation was going to become too hot for them to handle.
Indeed, in time, it became very hot for the Rhodies.
And so the Rhodesians decided to be ‘clever’.
They asked the Portuguese to allow them to join them secretly to fight and hopefully defeat FRELIMO which would ensure ZANLA never set foot in Mozambique.
The Portuguese accepted the Rhodesian offer, so the two racist nations operated jointly against FRELIMO, especially in Tete and Manica provinces of Mozambique.
For the Rhodesians, things did not work out as planned.
Mozambique fell spectacularly and FLELIMO got into power in 1975.
With the above development, ZANLA left Zambia and set up shop in Mozambique.
They were to eventually construct big refugee camps at places like Chimoio, Tembwe, reception centres at Doiroi and Chibawawa and lots of transit camps.
In no time, freedom fighters had raised the bar which the Rhodesians were never able to scale in the end.
Mozambique produced too many freedom fighters for the Rhodies to handle.
To appreciate the huge sacrifice Mozambicans gave to Zimbabwe’s liberation war, it is important to look at how the Rhodesian strategy to defeat the liberation movements changed as the liberation war progressed.
When ZANLA was still operating from Zambia, the Rhodesian strategy was straightforward.
They thought once they killed ZANLA and ZIPRA leaders, the war would come to an end.
No wonder, Cde Hebert Chitepo, who was then leader of ZANLA, and Jason Ziyaphapha Moyo, the then leader of ZIPRA, were assassinated by Rhodesian intelligence services.
Further, the Rhodies also thought that infiltrating the ranks of the freedom fighters with their intelligence operatives was going to cause a lot of infighting and confusion which would lead to the demise of the liberation movements themselves.
Thus on the part of ZANLA for example, a so-called rebellion called the ‘Nhari/Badza Rebellion’ within the fighters created by Rhodesian intelligence took place and for a short while caused some headaches.
But it soon petered out.
On top of this, while the Rhodies used their intelligence organisations, they did not target the host country in a big way, especially in the early days.
They seemed to direct all their efforts at what they called ‘terrorists’, but with the opening up of Mozambique, things were soon to change.
When ZANLA set base in Mozambique, the Rhodies, who were used to making raids in Mozambique during Portuguese times, decided to take the war to ZANLA and FRELIMO itself by invading Mozambique as before.
The use of the intelligence agencies took a back seat while the Rhodesian military, together with their South African apartheid friends, took the front row.
One Peter Stiff gives us some highlights of some of the many invasions that Rhodies carried out into Mozambique in their effort to defeat ZANLA.
These invasions caused a lot of havoc to Mozambique’s economy and pain, suffering and death to Mozambicans.
In the early days the raids into Mozambique took place mostly in the southern Gaza province, but later spread to other areas.
Below are some of the highlights of the invasions.
On January 1976, the Rhodesians invaded Mozambique and attacked a ZANLA base called Chikombedzi.
They destroyed grass huts, but nobody was killed or captured.
Seeing the need to carry out more raids into Mozambique’s southern province, the Rhodesians established a joint operational command at Chiredzi that same January 1976.
It was from here that the invasions were planned and executed.
One of the small Mozambican towns which was raided after the establishment of the operational command at Chiredzi was Chigamane in May 1976, in an operation the Rhodies code-named ‘Operation Detachment’.
The racists went into Mozambique in FRELIMO-looking military vehicles.
Ahead of these invading vehicles one major Butch Duncan, the Selous Scout liaison officer at Chiredzi, was tasked to disrupt vehicular movements in Mozambique’s Gaza Province, by laying mines and ambushing transport.
Then the military vehicles followed on the afternoon of May 13 with orders to lay mines along the route, to destroy all water pumps, capture any ZANLA or FRELIMO soldiers – destroy any stores or supplies found.
The operation took place, marking the beginning of bigger things to come.
A lot of Mozambican economic and military installations were targeted and now and again destroyed.
The Rhodies then decided to fight ZANLA and FRELIMO together.
Mozambique itself was to suffer both economically and militarily. After the attack on Chigamane, no time was wasted in getting to plan the first real flying column attack on Camp Mapai and Chicualacuala.
This attack was carried out by ferret armoured cars from the Rhodesian armoured car regiment.
They were supported by airpower and a FRELIMO camp was attacked and the railway line destroyed.
After this raid, Rhodesians attacked our Nyadzonia camp, where they massacred innocent defenceless refugees.
On the Mozambican side, they destroyed the Pungwe River Bridge. After the attack at Nyadzonia, in an operation code-named ‘Operation Prawn’, they attacked and destroyed the line of rail from Barragem to Malverna, that very August of 1976.
The best example of the intention of Rhodies to destroy Mozambique’s infrastructure and bring it to its knees was given in a paper prepared for the attack of Southern Mozambique during 1979.
Here are some of the extracts from that paper.
“In considering the disruption of the supply system, precedence must be given to isolating ports and major airfields.
“The most direct means of achieving this objective is to destroy key bridges on both the roads and railways.
“Five strategic bridges if destroyed will effectively isolate Gaza Province from Maputo, its main source of supply.
“Bridge 13, Changane River near Chibuto.
“Bridge 14, Canal Bridge near Chokwe, Bridge 15, Mezinchopes Rail Bridge on Magudeto – Barragem line.
“Bridge 16, Canal Bridge Barragem.
“Bridge 18, Limpopo Bridge at Canicado.”
All the above bridges were destroyed as part-and-parcel of the Rhodies’ strategy to force FRELIMO to make ZANLA abandon the war.
It was a waste of time, but Mozambique paid heavily because of the above evil Rhodesian action.
When the Rhodesians saw they were not enough to carry out all the sabotage activities against FRELIMO as well as fight it for supporting ZANLA, they created RENAMO, a rebel army to help them.
RENAMO not only helped Rhodesians fight ZANLA and FRELIMO, they also carried out sabotage activities up and down the country, destroying economic infrastructure in the whole of Mozambique.
It really needs a big book to chronicle the sacrifices Mozambique paid to help Zimbabwe’s freedom fighters.
All we can say is: Thank you Mozambique for helping our country become free!
This story was first published in The Patriot on Friday March 4 2016